J6 Committee Ignores Capitol Security Failures In Third Show Trial Hearing – The Federalist

The House Select Committee on Jan. 6 continued its show trials Thursday in the panels third hearing on the Capitol riot probing everything but the riot.

Retired federal judge Michael Luttig and former White House counsel for Vice President Mike Pence, Greg Jacob, testified before the committee on the vice presidents role certifying the election results over President Donald Trumps objections.

Luttig told the committee Pences compliance with Trumps orders to halt certification of the 2020 contest would have been the first constitutional crisis since the founding of the republic.

If I had been advising the vice president of the United States on Jan. 6, Luttig said, I would have laid my body across the road before I would have let the vice president overturn the 2020 election.

The panel spent hours reviewing Trumps efforts through theories espoused by attorney and law professor John Eastman to convince the vice president to thwart the electoral process on Jan. 6. Pence ultimately rebuked the president and continued with certification until the mob breached Capitol security interrupting the joint session of Congress. The vice president was taken to a secure location under the complex while rioters chanted hang Mike Pence above.

The Jan. 6 Committee characteristically dedicated little time to the Capitol security failures that put Pences safety in jeopardy, and instead blamed Trump for doing so through a pressure campaign to stop the count.

After about two hours, the House panel finally detailed Pences whereabouts at the Capitol as rioters overwhelmed police and entered the chambers.

California Democrat Rep. Pete Aguilar, who led Thursdays questioning, asked Pence counsel Jacobs, who was with the vice president throughout the riot about the days events.

Forty feet between the vice president and the mob, Aguilar said after playing footage from the Capitol. Mr. Jacob, you were there, seeing that for the first time, does it surprise you to see how close the mob was to the evacuation route that you took?

I could hear the din of the rioters in the building while we moved but I dont think I was aware that they were as close as that, Jacobs said, and was later asked to recount how his faith comforted him amid the riot.

The questioning was obviously designed to solicit emotion for a committee operating with the sole purpose of smearing political dissidents without any legitimate legislative value. If Aguilar and the rest of the panel were seriously concerned about Pences safety and the circumstances that led to the vice president being forced to shelter in a secure location, a more appropriate subject for questioning would have been former House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving. If not Irving, then any other top official involved in maintaining Capitol security or Pences secret service detail, which must have coordinated with officials at the complex.

As House Speaker Nancy Pelosis chief security officer in the lower chamber, Irving is at the center of the controversy surrounding the failures that led the mob into the Capitol. According to former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, Irving and Pelosi refused to deploy the National Guard to reinforce the Capitol security team six times. Irving said the National Guard presence would be bad optics.

Capitol Police, meanwhile, were ill-equipped and ill-trained to handle the horde of demonstrators who flooded the Capitol, according to a 128-page bipartisan Senate report, and were only half-staffed on Jan. 6. Irving, however, refused cooperation with lawmakers in the upper chamber.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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J6 Committee Ignores Capitol Security Failures In Third Show Trial Hearing - The Federalist